Arry vs R.E

[Welliesinarow]

Can you please, as simple as it can be, explain to me the difference in pronunciation between Arry and R.E?

To me Arry , like Harry with a dropped H, is pronounced as Har - E. , no?

hat, rat, bat - the a is the same, car has a longer sound. jug doesn't rhyme with any of them and has no a in it

R. E sounds like Maria without the M and a. ar-EE
Arry sounds like Harry without the H.

Basically I think in Spanish there are 5 vowel sounds whereas in English there are 12 + diphthongs.

I think this is quite helpful in describing them.

So Castillian Spanish has 5 vowel sounds and 5 vowel letters and they all match up no problem. English as it’s spoken in Southern England has 19 or 20 vowel sounds and matching the sounds to the letters in written English is a bit of a nightmare for 2nd language speakers. There are two ´a’ sounds here that you’re assimilating with Spanish /a/ - the shorter sound in ´mat’ that you make with your mouth a bit more closed and your tongue a bit flatter and more forward in your mouth, and the longer sound in ´mart’ that you make with your mouth a bit more open and your tongue pulled back further. The Spanish /a/ sound is kind of somewhere in between. I can draw you a diagram if you like. We can use the phonetic symbol /æ/ for the short more closed sound in ´mat’ and the /ɑ:/ symbol for the longer more open sound in ´mart’. Knowing when to use which one is a bit of a pain because it’s quite different based in different accents. In Southern England, people don’t say the ´r’ sound at the end of a syllable, and so when you have ´ar’ in the spelling and it’s the same syllable then that’s a give away that you’re going to get the long /ɑ:/ vowel. But it accents where they say their ´r’s at the end of the syllable (like in Scotland) then they might not even have the two ´a’ sounds. The long /ɑ:/ also shows up in words like ´palm’ and ´balm’ and then there’s a whole set of words that can be pronounced with either short /æ/ or long /ɑ:/ - like ´bath’ ´path’ ´grass’ and ´class’. It can be a class marker to say those words with a long /ɑ:/ but lots of people just use the two vowels interchangeably for ´bath’ ´path’ ´class’ and ´grass’ even though they hear them as them different vowels.
You get the short /æ/ sound in closed syllables (with a consonant on the end) with no ´r’ or involved and no silent ´e’ afterwards. Like ´hat’ ´matter’ ´stag’ ´band’ Anything with an ´l’ at the end of the syllable is a bit of a wildcard pronunciation wise…. ´ball´ has the same vowel as ´door’ but ´pal’ is short /æ/ again…. Yep. Nightmare. There’s a reason dyslexia is more prevalent in English speaking countries….
Getting back to your name choice.
´Harry’ uses short /æ/ always. Yes, I know there are two ´r’s there but they are the start of the second syllable and not the end of the first.
The Ari’s I knew, in a place with a /æ/ /ɑ:/ distinction, pronounced it as /ɑ:ri:/. But your other thread shows there’s not a consensus on this. If you use it and your son lives in a place with both vowels he’ll probably be able to tell people which version he likes better.
Does it matter that much which version people use if you can’t hear a difference anyway? At home you’ll say it your way and then at nursery and school your son will eventually pick one version. There’s not a right answer to that question, if it bothers you that there are two possible pronunciations even if they sound the same to you then that’s fair enough.
And if you’re in Scotland it probably makes no difference anyway!

Just to help. Ari will be pronounces Arry (like carry) by some people and Ar-ee like (sari/saree). I would say Ar-ee. (Not R. E!)

@DontPutTheKidsThroughIt wow and thank you!!!!! Super useful !

Glad it made sense!

Ari has a slightly longer "a" sound than the one in Harry because the phonemes in Ari aren't English ones. The "a" in Ari lies midway between the /a/ of "cat" "Harry" etc and the /a:/ of "bar" etc.

It's a difference in the pronunciation that Spanish and Italian have, (for example) that English doesn't. (The letter "i" is the same. Italian and Spanish "i" sounds are a fraction longer than the English one in "bit" and a fraction shorter than the one in "beat"

Most native English speakers therefore, won't (unless they're aware of the above) make that distinction and both Harry and Ari will be pronounced the same, just with Harry having the /h/ sound in front. /ari/ and /hari/

PS your English is fine!

I would not pronounce those the same in my accent.

'Arry would mirror 'Appy (Happy without the H) but with rr instead of pp.

R.E. (which means Religious Education to me) is pronounce like the name Ari (a fruend of my DC has this name) which is Ah - ee, with the first syllable like the "ah" of surprise or concern.

PS the reason many non native speakers apply a pseudo /a/ to some words (cup, jug, does, but, some etc) is simply because the (English) phone is produced much nearer the part of the vocal apparatus that produces the /a/ (back of the mouth) than it is to the part that produces the /u/ in book (front of the mouth)

You should only put // for phonetic symbols for phonemes. When you’re talking about letters you’re actually meant to use <>. /u/ is the sound in ´food’, not the sound in ´book’ or ´jug’.
The first set of examples you give (cup jug does but some) use the phoneme /ʌ/ which is produced with the jaw a little more closed or the tongue a little higher than spanish /a/ and potentially with the tongue pulled a little bit futher back in the mouth. It’s a really subtle difference and it’s not surprising OP assimilates them. In southern England ´book’ used a different sound - /ʊ/. This is made with your jaw much more closed than spanish /a/ or the sound in ´jug’ but not as closed as the /u/ sound in food. It’s often made with your to tongue pulled back quite far too, but can drift towards a more central position. I think you might feel like it’s made at the front of the mouth because it uses rounded lips?
In lots of northern English or Scottish English accents, the /ʌ/ of ´jug’ ´cup’ and ´does’ is pronounced the same as the /ʊ/ of book. But that won’t be the case where OP lives or she wouldn’t be mixing up /ʌ/ and Spanish /a/.

I was going to say that RE has the ar sound like in gustar, but I see there is a much better and more informed Spanish pronunciation post above 😆 but yeah

Generally but not always:

An 'a' followed by a constanant sounds short a. ..A
rat, bat, sat, lad but can sound like O - like wad and Walter
An 'a' followed by a constanant then an 'e' is a long 'a'.. Aye
bate, rate, sane, lane
An 'a' is at times elongated (not aye) for no reason .. AA
sad, bad, sham, dam
An 'a' is sounded AR when before letter 'r' .. AR
car. bar, tar, far
An 'a' sounds like 'or' if followed by ll or w .. OR, AW
call, tall, tall, shawl, crawl

With Arry and R.E.
Arry = short a and ree = A ree ... rhymes with carry
R.E. = name of letter R and name of letter E = AHHR EE
... rhymes with sari

I'd pronounce arry with a ay ending like say.

RE is pronounce with a ey ending like cookie.

I love the linguistic explanation!
Thank you, DontPutTheKidsThroughIt.

So for your ´a’ being elongated for no reason thing - there’s actually a systematic change going on.
short /æ/ is the sound in ´sat’ but also ´sad’, ´cap’ but also ´cab’, ´back’ but also ´bag’.
Can you hear that in my examples the second one has a slightly elongated vowel? That’s because they finish with a supposedly voiced consonant. In English we can tell apart the /p/ and /b/ in ´cap’ and ´cab’ by the length of the vowel that comes before it. If you try to make the vowel in ´cab’ shorter, you’ll end up hearing ´cap’ instead.
/m/ and /n/ are also voiced consonants so the /æ/ in ´Sam’ and ´sand’ is also a bit elongated.

This is a really interesting thread, thank you @DontPutTheKidsThroughIt for your post.
We live in Scotland, I and most people around us have broad west coast Scottish accents, but my husband has a Southern English accent. We've had a laugh about how different some baby names sound in our different accents and even rejected some on this basis e.g. Blair which sounds rather like "Bleaugh" when my husband says it 😅
I assume OP is not in Scotland! Ari is a cool name

Ps no offence meant to those with southern accents who might have or be considering a name like Blair! We just found it amusing how it sounds like two completely different names due to our accents

@Hankthehonk , it sounds like Bleaugh to me.

If you say 'carry' to mean 'to hold' something, it's like 'Arry'.

If you say 'carry' to mean 'a bit like a car' then it's like 'RE'.

Hope that clears things up.